South Africa is expected to take over the chair of one of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) crucial organs from Lesotho on Thursday, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
In a statement, the department said Lesotho’s Foreign Minister, Mohlabi Tsekoa, will hand over the reigns of the SADC’s politics, defence and security organ to Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota at a meeting at Sun City in the North West.
Deputy ministers of foreign affairs Aziz Pahad and Sue van der Merwe are part of the South African contingent to the two-day meeting, which ends on Friday.
Lesotho took over the chair in 2003 when it was agreed that chairmanship of the organ will rotate annually among the 14 SADC member states.
The decision was made after Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who chaired the organ since its inception in the early 1990s, sent troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo under the guise of the SADC about seven years ago.
Zimbabwe soldiers fought rebels alongside government troops in a war that drew in several of the DRC’s neighbours.
The Sun City meeting will also discuss an African Standby Force, how to observe and monitor elections, and regional political and economic matters.
A senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies said it is vital for South Africa to chair the organ in the interests of promoting democracy, peace and good governance in Africa.
”They [South Africa] will try by all means to transmit good governance values throughout the region,” Prince Mashele said.
”The organ is very important in the sense that it is responsible, largely, for peace and security. So it can be seen as peacemaker and peacekeeper.”
He said South Africa, by taking over the reins of the organ, is well placed to intervene in case there is trouble in the region. — Sapa